


ah, bitter dregs

by Adenil



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Episode: s03e12 Plato's Stepchildren, M/M, Squick, Velvet Prime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:49:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7982305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things go differently during the events of Plato's Stepchildren. It is McCoy who is forced on Spock, and who must deal with the impact of violence wrought by his own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ah, bitter dregs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TAFKAB](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TAFKAB/gifts).



> Gifted to TAFKAB because they gave me the original prompt. Thanks! 
> 
> Warnings: Mind the archive warnings above. This is darker than my usual fare.

_Take care young ladies and value your wine_   
_Be watchful of young men in their velvet prime_   
_Deeply they’ll swallow from you finest kegs_   
_Then swiftly be gone, leaving bitter dregs  
ah, bitter dregs_

_With smiling words and tender touch_   
_Man offers little and asks for so much_   
_He loves in the breathless excitement of night_   
_Then leaves with your treasure, in cold morning light  
ah, in cold morning light_

Spock stopped singing as the final note of the harp hung trembling in the air. McCoy was tense in his seat, worrying at his lower lip at the sight of the Vulcan gazing at the ceiling with vacant, glassy eyes. How much more of this torture would he have to endure?

Jim was one thing. The Captain was human, and although physical activity could exhaust him and might eventually hobble him, leaving him an invalid, it couldn’t destroy his spirit. Nothing could. McCoy could see his rage and his passion behind his hazel eyes. Chapel and Uhura would likely be all right in the end as well. As long as Philana watched her husband, McCoy was certain Parmen wouldn’t push it too far. What he might do would be awful, and terrible, but not incurable.

But for Spock it was different. Parmen forced him to experience emotions he had no control over--laughter and sorrow, rage and hatred. By making him feel they were also making him die. It had hurt McCoy to know that Spock saw emotions only as a source of pain--if not for yourself, then for those around you. He could not imagine the pain Spock had experienced just by forcing himself to say those words.

The applause died as he shifted in his seat and Parmen made a grand gesture. “Now, let the revels begin!”

McCoy could not look away as the quartet danced to the center of the room. The way Spock stood, hunched and panting with exertion despite having barely moved, made McCoy itch to take out his tricorder. If only they would let him heal his friend! But they did not. The beds rearranged themselves, and soon Chapel and Uhura each were sprawled across a separate bed as Spock and Jim moved between them. A awful, dark marionette dance of feckless men, willing to bed any woman.

Chapel’s hand was shaking as she touched Spock’s face, and then McCoy did look away.

His gaze fell to Philana, and for a moment she seemed to be looking into his soul. He could see how it disturbed her to see these two women like this, laid out like food on a platter for the men’s enjoyment. And then men did laugh, mocking Jim and Spock in their forced dance, mocking as Chapel begged Spock to stop them. For a moment McCoy thought he could reach out to Philana--she seemed so close! Reach and and grab her, convince her this was wrong! But then her eyes seemed to look through him, like he wasn’t even there, and she touched her husband’s shoulder with one delicate hand.

“I don’t believe Dr. McCoy is enjoying the acting, my love,” she said, her voice falsely sympathetic, as though she were speaking of a child.

“Is it true?” Parmen looked to him, amused at his insolence.

“You’re damned right it’s true! You aren’t going to convince me to join your insane band, no matter what you do!” But how he wished he could. He wished that he could trust Parmen to let his friends go. He would gladly stay in this hellhole for an eternity if it meant that the others would go free. But he could not.

“You must understand, Doctor, that this is merely an example of the fantastic joys we will provide for you when you agree to stay. We put on many amusements, but they are not all so far distant as this. It is the distance that bothers you, is it not?”

“It is not. It’s the fact that this is happening—!” His voice was abruptly silenced as Parmen choked him.

“I have heard too many your complaints and too much of your self-aggrandizing!” He softened instantly. “You  do not understand. We have perfected the philosophic arts. We recognize that to submit to pleasuring one’s self is not ignoble, but necessary. When you join us you will experience it as well. You will have anyone--your wildest dreams will be fulfilled. Perhaps you merely need a taste of what’s to come?”

McCoy was standing. He tried to force his legs still, but instead they moved. He tripped over the partition and walked, stilted and uneven, towards where his four crewmates looked on in horror.

“Man is not evil if he takes what he wants. And what do you want, Dr. McCoy?”

To get out of here! He wanted to scream, but his lips were pursed shut, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth. He felt paralyzed but still he moved. He collapsed against Uhura’s bed first, next to Jim, and his hand raised of its own volition to stroke against her cheek. She shuddered at the touch.

And then he was away, stumbling towards Chapel. He nearly managed to get away--or he convinced himself that he did, for he tripped and fell on her hard, breaking up the embrace she had with Spock. She gasped as he fell, her large eyes concerned for him. Ever the nurse, even in such times as these. The realization that she worried for his health was almost enough for him to feel it was okay. He hoped they would leave him with her. That was the best case scenario in a series of terrible choices. She and he could get along. They knew how to handle each other. There would be no hard feelings, whatever happened. He tried to communicate this to her without words, using only his steady gaze, and she did relax, but then her entire body tensed.

She rose from the bed, and he rose as well. He could hear the dry thump of Spock slumping to the floor as they pushed past him. He wanted to look at the Vulcan, to examine him, but he could not turn his head from Chapel. She raised her hands, fingers like claws, and he found himself contorted, body morphed with his fists held high, and then they fell into fighting.

The Platonians applauded and shrieked with laughter as they fought. She stumbled around him, and he around her, and her hands struck out against him but each shot missed. He wondered if she had that much control over her body. He certainly didn’t. When Parmen forced his hand to rise, flat as a blade, he slapped her.

She fell to the ground with a cry and he stood over her, panting. His hand quivered and all his limbs were shaking with exertion. If he could only _get away!_

“To the victor go the spoils,” said one Platonian.

“And oh what spoils they are!” cackled another.

At first, McCoy did not know what they meant. He assumed they meant Chapel. But then his body was turning of its own accord and he saw Spock.

His first thought was—sickly—that Spock was beautiful.

He was splayed out on the bed, artfully arranged. He could have been a painting. He held himself up by one elbow and gazed up at McCoy from beneath his wreath. He was smiling slightly.

McCoy took a step. And another. His first instinct was to reach out to Spock to comfort, but when his hands moved they carried only violence. He knelt by Spock and grabbed the Vulcan by his arms. McCoy was still choking on his own rage, his own ability to escape, to do anything worthwhile instead of being so terribly useless. He looked into Spock’s glassy eyes and tried to find his friend there.

He suddenly felt his vocal cords unfreeze and he relaxed slightly, only to tense again. He knew the Platonians were looking for a show, and he didn’t want to give them one. But he needed to comfort his friend. He needed to let Spock know that everything would be alright.

Because it would be. It had to be.

“Spock,” he whispered. To speak felt like gargling glass, as if he’d been screaming into inky void of space. “It’s going to be okay.”

Spock made no move.

“Can you… stop them?” He had not given himself a shot, and he cursed himself for such an oversight. He was a damned fool.

Spock hesitated, “We have tried.”

“Please, you have to try again.”

Spock closed his eyes with a twitch. He looked as though he were in incredible pain. With a gasp his eyes flew open again, a shudder running through him. “I haven’t the power. I’m sorry. I have failed you.”

“I should be apologizing to you,” McCoy said. He wished he could smile, if only to comfort himself. “It’s my fault you’re—” he had to force himself not to lean in with the power of Parmen’s command. He managed to stay still, shaking. “My fault… you’re in… this mess.”

“No, Doctor. The blame does not lie with you.” Spock seemed so small beneath him.

He felt his thumb moving against Spock’s skin, and for a moment he panicked. But it was not Parmen moving him. He had done it himself, without thinking. A soft brush to let Spock know he wasn’t alone in this. He did it again and Spock shivered at the touch. He struggled against the force of Parmen’s mind in vain, and then he was jerked forward, and his lips found Spock’s.

It was tense and Spock was unwieldy beneath him. Spock was like a rock as they kissed, and McCoy could feel Spock’s teeth smashed behind his lips. The Vulcan was suddenly hot to the touch and McCoy would have pulled away if he could, for Spock nearly burned him. But he could only endure. He felt Spock’s shaking arms come to his waist, and then they were entwined on the bed.

Parmen moved them like dolls, insinuating McCoy’s leg between Spock’s, wrapping them around each other as if they were lovers passionately embracing. It felt sick and wrong. McCoy had thought about it, before. Thought about what it would feel like to hold Spock, to comfort him. To kiss him gently. To trail fingers down his side. But not like this. Not when Spock was exuding his distaste from every pore. Not when McCoy felt so violently ill. Not when he knew Chapel and Uhura and _Jim_ were watching, along with a crowd of happy Platonians.

“Be careful, Mr. Spock. Too much love is dangerous.”

“Remember! Cupid’s arrow _kills_ Vulcans.”

The words made McCoy tremble in fear, for they were true, and the Platonians knew they were true, dammit! They knew because he had told them. They knew because he had begged them to stop torturing Spock. They knew that forcing such emotions out of him would destroy him! And now Spock was being destroyed by his own hands. Hands meant for healing and loving, not for this twisted and unnatural act.

He could feel his hands moving again, and then blissfully his head was free. Apparently there were limits to what Parmen could concentrate on at once. He pulled away and looked down at Spock as his hands, with a mind of their own, trailed up to cup Spock’s curved jaw.

“Just pretend it isn’t real,” he said, mostly to himself.

Spock looked at him carefully. For a moment lucidity seemed to come back into his gaze. “...’How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state?’”

So caught up in Spock’s words was he that McCoy did not realize his hands had dropped until he saw his own fingers untying the knot of Spock’s tunic. He stared in horror as he did it, hands moving deftly as they did during surgery. He hated himself for his deftness. “No,” he whispered, and his hands began to shake as they moved towards the knot on the other shoulder. “No!”

“It is alright,” Spock said. His voice was so quiet McCoy could barely hear him. “Do not injure yourself in resistance.”

“I have to resist, Spock. I can’t—I can’t hurt you.”

Spock’s hands closed over his shaking fist, and for a moment McCoy thought that perhaps he had beaten this, that they had won. But Spock was clearly not in control as he pushed McCoy’s hand lower, under the loose opening of the tunic. The way a lover would direct their partner’s hand lower, but of course they were not lovers. McCoy gritted his teeth in one last desperate attempt to stop as his hands pushed aside Spock’s tunic entirely, and then Spock was naked beneath him.

Spock flushed green as the Platonians laughed and applauded at his nakedness.

“Bastards!” McCoy jerked his head and suddenly he was looking at them, like glaring down the barrel of a phaser as he stared into Parmen’s dull, disinterested eyes. “This is wrong and you know it!”

Parmen looked amused again. “What is wrong about love?”

His head was forced to turn again, and for a second his gaze crossed paths with Jim. He could see Jim’s horror and his impotence to stop what was happening in the grim set of his mouth. The Platonians had given up on Jim and Uhura for the moment, and were only holding them still. But it didn’t take a genius to know that as soon as they had finished with him and Spock, they would seek more of their sick entertainment. He had been wrong to think Philana would defend them.

He looked to Spock again. “I’m sorry,” he said as his hands moved.

“Please do not look away again,” Spock said, so quiet that at first McCoy did not think he had heard correctly. But he had.

He gulped. “I won’t.”

His hands touched Spock’s quivering stomach and then spread his legs. He thought of them that way--as just hands, separate from his body. Not anything that he could control. Resigning himself was almost easier.

Spock was not aroused, and so the hands pressed one thumb into Spock’s sheath. There was wetness there and the thumb spread it around, massaging at Spock’s cock hidden inside his body. Spock hitched his breath as it happened.

“I’m sorry I’m hurting you.”

“...You are not.”

When Spock’s penis began to poke out Parmen apparently gave up on that--or maybe realized that Spock didn’t have a vagina, who knew? McCoy’s deft and quaking hands went to his pants and opened them, and then instantly he was hard.

He grunted in pain. It felt like a hand had reached down inside him and yanked an erection out of him along with all of his internal organs. He was shaking and there were tears welling in his eyes as Spock moved to wrap his legs around his waist.

“You can’t do this,” McCoy said, squeezing every muscle in his body against the pain in his groin. “It’ll… tear him up to...do this… Can’t you see you’re hurting him?”

It felt as though Parmen’s voice was floating in from many miles away. “How can I hurt what I have not touched?”

McCoy cried out again--it was true! He was the one touching Spock. It was his hands digging into Spock’s hips. His fingers which had wrought violence onto Spock’s skin. It was his erection pressing into the body of his friend, rending him apart, tearing him, cutting him. It was his own weakness that had prevented him from stopping this torment. He should have given himself a shot. He should have agreed to stay with the Platonians the first time, when there had still been a chance of Jim and Spock getting out of this alive. He was the monster; he knew it to be true.

Suddenly Spock was rearing up to kiss him again and the Platonians all hooted and hollered, and one commented on Spock’s initiative, but then McCoy felt Spock’s hand—shielded from view by their kiss—press against his temple and suddenly Spock was inside his mind.

_You have not hurt me, Leonard_. And with the words a rush of fondness and kindness and strength and unity and it sounded as if Spock were singing again, but this time because he wanted to. Because he wanted McCoy to hear his lovely voice etch ballads into the space of their minds.

And then he was out again, gasping as he bottomed out inside Spock and Spock lay beneath him, face flat with well-mastered pain. And he wanted to cry but he could do nothing but look down at Spock as his body moved without his consent. But the kind words stayed locked in his mind, and he knew that Spock had put them there. Had put the ballad in his head: Spock’s quiet lullaby in his mind, accompanied by Vulcan lyre. And the lullaby was sweet and it was good, and it was everything that this situation was not, and it was grounding even though it made him fly.

He could feel his body approaching orgasm. It roiled within him with each stilted thrust and he tried to concentrate on the words, on the song. He knew there were no lyrics and still he hunted for them as the pleasure in his body grew, forced into existence by Spock’s hot skin, his inconsistent sounds of hurt and something else. He felt like he was on a tightrope over a pit of spikes, and each step was impossible and dangerous and it would be easier just to come. To tumble end-over-end. To impact on the ground in a splash of color. It would be easier to hurl himself off that rope.

And suddenly it snapped.

He was off Spock in an instant, falling to the ground, and Spock was rising. There was a commotion in the viewing chamber. Alexander had a knife, and Jim was marching forward with one hand outstretched as he and Parmen and Alexander all vied for control, for power.

Spock reached out to him and helped him stand.

After, when it was resolved and Parmen had ceased begging for mercy and Spock was standing clothed again with his hands folded neatly behind his back, McCoy approached him. They had only minutes before the beamed out.

“When we get back to the ship,” he whispered. “It’s absolutely vital that you see M’Benga for your injuries.”

“That is not necessary.”

“It is necessary!” McCoy hissed, and then he stopped himself. “You’ve just been assaulted and there could be internal bleeding. You need a full workup and treatment.”

Spock waited until he was finished. “It is not necessary,” he said again. “Because you are my primary care physician.”

“Spock…”

“I have always trusted you with my health, Doctor,” Spock said stiffly. “And that will not change. After all...” He looked contemplative as McCoy stood there, dumbstruck. “Who else should I trust but the man who will someday cure the common cold?”

He was struck by Spock’s words, but before he could formulate a response Jim was there with Uhura and Chapel, all once again in their uniforms.

“Bones, Mr. Spock, that’s enough gossiping. It’s time we got out of this place.” Jim looked at him, intense and fragile, and McCoy felt as though he were being splayed open with an old and rusty scalpel. “And we need to have a post-mission debrief. To discuss mission logs, that sort of thing.”

“Of course, Captain,” Spock said.

“...Of course,” McCoy said.

Jim gave him another look and pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise. Six to beam up.”


End file.
